Category: General musings

  • Got snow?

    Well, it’s over — over that is except for the backache I gave myself digging us out. Here in Southborough, the Blizzard of 2013 was a whopper. A TV station said we had 25.5 inches, but I am quite certain we got more than that. Tricia was scheduled to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She…

  • A PowerPoint 2013 mea culpa on wrapping text

    Every now and then, a human touch comes through in a software product that is otherwise devoid of any human touch. And it’s always a little bit of a surprise because we don’t think of software in the same terms as we do things that claim to be “handicraft” or “hand-made.” Software seems somehow divorced…

  • Riddle me this: why is it so freakin’ hard to nail a visual metaphor?

    Today at work, I was trying to describe something in words that I could clearly see in my mind to an artist we have engaged to develop an animation for our product. And, not for the first time in the recent past, words failed the normally loquacious Alex. No matter what analogies I drew, no matter…

  • Summer 2012 reminiscence

    It’s the Friday before Labor Day, 2012 — the unofficial last weekend of the summer and I feel like reminiscing a little. The image in my head is the first day of school, say, sixth grade, when the teacher goes ’round the room asking what everyone did over the summer as a way of breaking the ice.…

  • Revit and Building Information Modeling

    This is a post about time. How it goes by — and then unexpectedly comes rushing back on you. Earlier this week, I had to send my mechanical watch back to its maker for some work. That sent me to the kitchen drawer — you know, the one with all the stuff in it — to see…

  • Unreal gets a new meaning

    When I was a kid, we used the term “unreal” to apply to stuff we though was so unbelievably good we couldn’t come up with a suitable superlative. Example: “Man, have you heard ‘Purple Haze?’ That Jimi Hendrix is freakin’ unreal.” While we applied the term to food when we had — ahem — the munchies,…

  • It’s a simple head code…anyone can catch it

    This video parody of the technical gibberish many companies use to describe their technology will have you ROFL. It’s the kind of writing I hope I never end up convincing myself was necessary to describe a product.

  • We interrupt this blog for an inspirational message

    Those of you who know me personally know that being inspirational isn’t really my forte. I’m much better being snarky and snide. (Though I’ll never master the art of impertinence like @snipeyhead has). But I needed a new post for this blog to test a fix to a problem and to push the political endorsement I…

  • New look, same snark

    Back in the good old days at IBM — the days when smokers were allowed to smoke inside the office — the guys would congregate in the back of the office in Copley Place (aka “New Jersey”) and through thick clouds of blue smoke bitch about management. After a moment of silence while we absorbed…

  • Software only its mother could love

    I’m learning something, or actually re-learning, something fundamental about marketing: a new idea, a true breakthrough, won’t sell. I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve been talking to people whose job it is to follow/report/blog about software. And more than one has told me that I once worked on a very original product that, despite…

  • A brush with the Nobel Prize ceremony

    Everyone knows I am a big fan of BMWs; I’m already lusting after a new F30 3 Series, even though they haven’t been officially introduced into the US as yet. I especially enjoy seeing models we can’t get in the US when I am traveling. So, I am always on the lookout for unusual BMWs.…

  • What took me so long?

    Something big happened last weekend. I’ve waited until now to blog about it because I wanted to consider what to say publicly about reconnecting with three of my old Boston University college roommates. Now, a week after dinner with Judson and Dana followed by drinks two days later with Judson and Nick (along with Nick’s…